Factors associated with antenatal care utilization among young women (20-24) years in Uganda

Abstract

The independent variables that were statistically associated with utilization of antenatal care among young women 20-24 years included; education level, residence, wealth, parity/ number of children/ pregnancies ever born since their Uganda has one of the youngest population in the world.77% of its population is below 30 years according to Uganda population and Housing survey report 2014. This study aimed at examining factors associated with utilization of ANC among young women (20-24) years. Across sectional survey was carried out on the socio demographic, economic characteristics of the respondents and the frequency of ANC were generated. A sample size of 2723 young women aged 20-24 years who have attended ANC was used from UDHS, 2016 data and univariate and bivariate analysis was among 1022 young women who had less than 4 ANC visits and 1701 women who had 4 and more ANC visits was used to establish the relationship association between the dependent variable and the independent variables. ANC enables to detect health complications among women during pregnancy. Pregnancy related complications are one of the leading causes of death among women in the country, this study therefore seek mainly to find out; the reasons why ANC utilization is low especially among young women, how ANC reduces IMR and MMR in Uganda, what can be done to Increase ANC in Uganda p-value was less than 0.05. However, three independent variables that are employment status, marital status and religion were not significant/ not associated with utilization of ANC among young women since the p-value was above 0.05 using women dataset UDHS 2016. The study findings will be used to generate policies and strategies by health workers and policy makers to curb strategic measures for ensuring adequate utilization of ANC among women to enable women and children live healthy lives.